Tank size/Fish compatibility
 

I'm in the early stages of planning a new tank, and I wanted to see what you guys thought of these fish in the dimensions I'm planning-

Tank will be 36x36x22, so 123 total gallons (though I'll likely have 2 inches of sand).

I don't want many fish, but the two that I really hope can live in a tank this size are a powder blue tang and a copper band butterfly.

what does everyone think about those fish in a tank that size? I know people normally say 6 foot minimum for a tang like that, but I have zero experience with cubes, so I'm not sure if that gives you more options in terms of fish.

Any thoughts?

36X36 is plenty of swimming room for some tangs. Gives them lots of 'circular' swimming room.

Tang Police shouldn't harp on you too bad LOL

sweet, I'm also hoping to keep at least one expensive wrasse and my main concern is them jumping. In my early days I was given veeeeery bad advice at an LFS and told that a sohal tang would be perfectly happy in 90 gallon (this is before I knew anything), and it sort of went crazy. It made every fish in the tank jump at one point or another. I don't want a repeat experience from a cramped in PBT

Access on three sides?
36" may be too deep if you don't have access to the sides.
Why not 48"x48"??
Or 48"x36"? Think this would be a nicer size.
Just my 2cents

But the Copperband police might...:twised:

hehe, this tank is supposed to be smaller than my current tank! I'm going with 36x36 as a starting point because we haven't bought the house this will be going in yet and 3 foot square will fit in more spaces than 4 foot square will. If I can get a 48x48 tank when the time comes... hells yes! Also, the plan is to have access on 3 sides.

You think that's too small for a copper band? I thought they could live in way smaller tanks? Or just that copper bands are testy to begin with? I've had amazeballs success with copperbands so far, you should see how fat my current one is.

copperbanded butterflies don;t need room so much as an established system to provide them with food.

95% of them will starve to death eventually.

If you saw my copperband, you'd know that wasn't a risk for him. The one I lost in a ich treatment/QT accident was the same. My experience has been that they're hard to get to eat, but once you've got them trained on frozen foods (which definitely requires some TLC, preferabbly in a separate, low competition qt system) they're as robust as any other fish.

I do agree they'll do better in a mature system (everything does), but once you get them eating you can easily provide their entire caloric requirements with frozen foods.

Mine eats two different kinds of enriched brine, two different brands of mysis, pacifica plankton, and most of a frozen clam or mussel every other day or so. He's as thick as a tang.

I will definitely agree that getting them to that point can be a challenge though.

I would say you are good to go on both. I have close to the same size tank and mine are fine. plenty of room for them to swim around.